Author Archives: CooLMinE
Windows 8.1 Update 1 to be released this spring (2014)
Joe Belfiore has mentioned in the Windows blog page that Windows 8.1 Update 1 is currently scheduled to be released this spring.
Over the next few months, we’ll continue to deliver innovation and progression with an update to Windows 8.1, coming this spring.
Not much information has been released yet as to what changes the new update will bring to the users, but based on the things pointed out in an official post it seems that desktop user experience will be one of the main things they want to improve.
- We’ll enable our partners to build lower cost hardware for a great Windows experience at highly competitive price points.
- We are making improvements to the user interface that will naturally bridge touch and desktop, especially for our mouse and keyboard users. We have a number of targeted UI improvements that keep our highly satisfying touch experience intact, but that make the UI more familiar and more convenient for users with mouse/keyboard. Don’t worry, we still LOVE and BELIEVE IN touch… but you’ll like how much more smooth and convenient these changes make mouse and keyboard use!
- We are enhancing support for enterprise customers via a few tweaks, particularly including features that greatly improve IE8 compatibility in Internet Explorer 11, which is especially critical for web-based line of business applications. Additionally, we’re extending mobile device management capabilities and making deployment easier.
As a desktop user I welcome any chances aimed to improve the functionality for keyboard and mouse users and I am eager to see what the update has in store for us.
What kind of features/improvements would you like to see in the new update ?
How to generate QR barcodes in C#
QR barcodes are machine-readable optical labels that contain certain information. Today we will be looking into how to generate QR codes with the use of the ZXing.Net library.
First you will need to download the ZXing.Net library from zxingnet.codeplex.com. Extract the contents of the file you have downloaded and reference the library that fits your needs in your project.
Using the example code below you will now be able to create your own QR codes.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | public Bitmap GenerateQR(int width, int height, string text) { var bw = new ZXing.BarcodeWriter(); var encOptions = new ZXing.Common.EncodingOptions() { Width = width, Height = height, Margin = 0 }; bw.Options = encOptions; bw.Format = ZXing.BarcodeFormat.QR_CODE; var result = new Bitmap(bw.Write(text)); return result; } |
Example: Calling the following method will return a Bitmap object which you can save using the Bitmap’s Bitmap.Save() method or simply display it within your application.
1 | GenerateQR(200, 200, "http://www.fluxbytes.com/csharp/generating-qr-barcode-in-c/"); |
Visual Studio 2013 update 1 is now available
A new update for Visual Studio 2013 has been released. The update includes the latest updates, including feature additions and bug fixes.
For more detailed information about what was fixed visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2911573#fixedissues.
Visual Studio 2013 Update 1 can be applied to the following products:
- Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
- Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2013
- Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2013
- Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web
- Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows
- Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop
- Release Management Client for Visual Studio 2013
- Release Management for Visual Studio 2013
- Release Management Server for Team Foundation Server 2013
Download links removed. Read below.
Visual Studio 2013 update 2 is now the newest update. Visit Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 is now available for more information.
Posted in Microsoft, Software Updates.
Tagged Microsoft, Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2013
Unzip files using Shell32 in C#
The .NET Framework didn’t have an easy way for developers to unzip files resulting to a lot of people having to use third party libraries to achieve that functionality. This was until the .NET Framework 4.5 was released which had a new class called ZipFile that simplified the process of unzipping files..
But since targeting the .NET Framework 4.5 might not be ideal in many cases, mainly because its adaptation rate is still fairly low I will demostrate another way to unzip .zip files with the use of Shell32.
Firstly you will need to reference in your project the COM library called Microsoft Shell Controls And Automation (Interop.Shell32.dll) in order to be able to access the Shell32 namespace.
The method below is a simple example that takes two parameters. The .zip file location and the folder destination where the files will be extracted to.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 | public static void UnZip(string zipFile, string folderPath) { if (!File.Exists(zipFile)) throw new FileNotFoundException(); if (!Directory.Exists(folderPath)) Directory.CreateDirectory(folderPath); Shell32.Shell objShell = new Shell32.Shell(); Shell32.Folder destinationFolder = objShell.NameSpace(folderPath); Shell32.Folder sourceFile = objShell.NameSpace(zipFile); foreach (var file in sourceFile.Items()) { destinationFolder.CopyHere(file, 4 | 16); } } |
The usage is fairly simple:
1 | UnZip(@"C:\myzipfile.zip", @"C:\my destination folder"); |
Creating and connecting to a Microsoft Access Database programmatically in C#
The following example aims to get you a bit more familiar as to how to create and connect to a Microsoft Access database programmatically while being able to add any type of tables you want as well are inserting and retrieving data from it.
Firstly we will need to reference two libraries in our project. Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.0 Library (Interop.ADODB.dll) which we will use to ensure that the connection to the database is closed after we are done creating it, and Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.8 for DDL and Security (Interop.ADOX.dll) which is needed to be able to access the classes that are required to create our database.
After you have finished adding those two references to your project you can use the code sample below to create the database file programmatically. Feel free to modify the code to suit your needs. Also please note that setting your project to Any CPU build will cause exceptions to be thrown when creating the database.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 | public static void CreateAccessDatabase() { string connectionString = string.Format("Provider={0}; Data Source={1}; Jet OLEDB:Engine Type={2}", "Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0", "mydb.mdb", 5); ADOX.CatalogClass catalog = new ADOX.CatalogClass(); catalog.Create(connectionString); ADOX.Table table = new ADOX.Table(); table.Name = "Users"; // Table name // Column 1 (id) ADOX.ColumnClass idCol = new ADOX.ColumnClass(); idCol.Name = "Id"; // The name of the column idCol.ParentCatalog = catalog; idCol.Type = ADOX.DataTypeEnum.adInteger; // Indicates a four byte signed integer. idCol.Properties["AutoIncrement"].Value = true; // Enable the auto increment property for this column. // Column 2 (Name) ADOX.ColumnClass nameCol = new ADOX.ColumnClass(); nameCol.Name = "Name"; // The name of the column nameCol.ParentCatalog = catalog; nameCol.Type = ADOX.DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar; // Indicates a string value type. nameCol.DefinedSize = 60; // 60 characters max. // Column 3 (Surname) ADOX.ColumnClass surnameCol = new ADOX.ColumnClass(); surnameCol.Name = "Surname"; // The name of the column surnameCol.ParentCatalog = catalog; surnameCol.Type = ADOX.DataTypeEnum.adVarWChar; // Indicates a string value type. surnameCol.DefinedSize = 60; // 60 characters max. table.Columns.Append(idCol); // Add the Id column to the table. table.Columns.Append(nameCol); // Add the Name column to the table. table.Columns.Append(surnameCol); // Add the Surname column to the table. catalog.Tables.Append(table); // Add the table to our database. // Close the connection to the database after we are done creating it and adding the table to it. ADODB.Connection con = (ADODB.Connection)catalog.ActiveConnection; if (con != null && con.State != 0) con.Close(); } |
